This story might fall under “high school show and tell.”
This photo, believe it or not, wasn’t taken in a gun store or National Guard armory. It’s a weapons cache seized from an 18-year-old high school student arrested yesterday in Twenty-Nine Palms, California, for threatening to “shoot, stab, and assault” three of his teachers because he felt he “wasn’t getting respect” from them.
Now, to be clear, many of these “guns” are actually airsoft guns which are primarily often used for sport. The BB’s they fire often only amount to bruises or broken clay pigeons. It seems many were collected just for the sake of collecting them, something many Americans already do.
At least one of the weapons is real, as police executing a search warrant found “hundreds of rounds” of live rifle ammo.
http://abc7.com/news/student-arrested-for-threat-against-ie-school-staff/343302/
My question is, where does an 18-year-old get money for stuff like this? In this case, I don’t know, but the news stories about this case indicate the suspect lives with his father, so it sounds like a broken-family situation, and maybe dad bought toys for his boys to keep them happy so they wouldn’t go running off to live with mom (in which case, he’d have to pay child support)? I’m just speculating, but I suspect a teen living with a parent couldn’t have stuff like this without the parent knowing about it, so I’m picking up some bad parenting vibes here.
The suspect’s brother describes him as “temperamental” and “angry” but not someone who would hurt anybody. Really. Well, the thing is, if you go around saying you’re going to shoot and stab people, and the contents of your bedroom at home look like this, you have to expect that someone may think you meant what you said, and take your words seriously.
Bail was set at $50,000 pending a preliminary hearing. And, of course, he’s expelled from school.